Singapore Deal: Najib finds Umno more important than Parliament and Rakyat

The Malaysian Insider reported on May 27 :-

“Datuk Seri Najib Razak declared today that he had obtained the backing of the Umno supreme council for the government’s decision to relocate the Tanjong Pagar railway station in Singapore” (read here).

The day the Singapore deal was announced, there on began a slew of opposing views that our Government sold out to the Singapore Government and that we had missed the real deal for a compromise of what appeared to be a “good” deal for developing the valuable land in Tanjong Pagar. The opposition insisted on a full disclosure in the transaction in what appeared to be shrouded in total secrecy given that it was Khazanah that undertook the deal on behalf of the Government of Malaysia.

Here is some food for thought!

All that was shared by the PM were mere words to described the goodness of the deal with no facts to present to the Rakyat or the Parliament, the representatives of the Rakyat. Certainly, by avoiding to tell more, the PM inadvertently clouded a mysterious scenario of what actually transpired. The mere declaration that the Cabinet had approved is not good enough given the past experiences that the Government may not have handled contentions with Singapore in a particularly transparent and efficacious way.

To top it off, Najib’s defense that the deal was good is now based on the so-called blessing of the Umno supreme council. Since when is the Umno supreme council more important than the Rakyat? At the very least, if the PM is seeking to clarify without making public the information should be the Parliament and not the Umno supreme council. This action by Najib paints the implicit paramount importance to Government decisions that must be supported by the Umno supreme council. This is an obvious flaw in the choice of action by Najib!

Besides the Parliament, everybody else is equal under the Constitution. The Umno supreme council is made up of some individuals of the Rakyat and not the Rakyat themselves. Najib should have disclosed to the Parliament and not the Umno supreme council to gain support for the Government’s decision in the Tanjong Pagar case.

This precedent is extremely dangerous that the Umno supreme council is now more important than the Rakyat and the Parliament given that nobody else besides the Cabinet and the Umno supreme council know what actually transpired. Is Najib the PM of Malaysians or Umno? Are Government decisions reserved for Umno’s knowledge or for the Rakyat who voted them?

Strangely, BN component parties may only find out from their Cabinet representations but Umno has a special briefing for the supreme council and only their endorsement matters. Does this mean that Umno’s decision represents BN? This is not a mischievous line of questioning, rather it is a genuine, open, non-partisan question that Malaysians are asking.

This may inadvertently give way for Pakatan Rakyat to question the BN Government even more and may pose immense obstacles to Najib for his on-going promotion of 1Malaysia.